A bare six months in and Anthony Albanese is already unbeatable for FC’s 2025 Words That Will Haunt Him Forever award. “This is a time when government has to step up, to invest in education and skills and research and innovation,” he said at the National Press Club, Tuesday. Whatever the investment is it will be universally decried as not enough.
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Griffith U is the latest university to be nailed with an enforceable undertaking by the Fair Work Ombudsman. GU will complete payments of $8.34m million plus, including interest and super, to 5,457 staff it did not correctly pay in the first place, from July 2015 to June 2024. One staffer was so stiffed their payment is $94,000.
GU joins La Trobe U, Uni Sydney, Uni Newcastle, UTS, Uni Melbourne and Charle Sturt U in agreeing to FWO performance requirements. Uni Melbourne also copped a judgement in the Federal Court and a long-running FWO court action against Uni New South Wales is said to be close to concluding.
As enforceable undertakings go, GU’s is at the lower end of penalties. It must fix systems, train staff, establish independent oversight and have a standing consultation process with staff and the National Tertiary Education Union, on “workplace relations compliance.” The FWO also requires it make a $170,000 contrition payment to the Cleaning Accountability Framework, which protects cleaners (nice touch). This contrasts with the University of Melbourne which the FWO made pay $600,000 to the Commonwealth and directed it make compliance a specific matter for Council.
The Ombudsman is also generous in attributing blame, saying GU, “deserves credit for acknowledging its breaches and the underlying issues, and committing significant time and resources to put in place corrective measures.” Good-o, but it took nine years.
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Monash U had a “teaching and research centre” in Tuscany for just shy of 25 years. It’s in the “heritage-listed” Palazzo Vaj, in Prato, not far from Florence. But what was a centre is now a campus, “reflecting Prato’s extensive education and research activities and its enduring presence in Europe.” Just the change to stop cynics suggesting Prato is an elitist indulgence.
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UTS shuts the door on inside protests but only because its’ “small city campus” makes them a health and safety risk under government regulations. “The university remains committed to working with staff and student groups to find open, accessible, and safe locations for gatherings that weigh freedom of expression with community safety,” a UTS spokesperson says.” Which are hard to find, given UTS’s mainly vertical location.
Last week neighbouring and tower-block free Uni of Sydney ruled that only course-related announcements can be made before a class starts as there were cases last year of students being harangued about Gaza while waiting for lectures to commence. Student statements are ok after classes end – people can listen or leave as they wish.
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Nicola Phillips is the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of Adelaide University, which opens the drawbridge to its ivory towers in January. She moves from provost at the University of Melbourne, where she has been since 2020. A provost’s lot is not always a happy one and at UoM Professor Phillips faced controversies over the university relying on, but underpaying, casual staff and allegations it did not do enough about antisemitism on campus. She also led the not entirely successful campaign to encourage everybody back to Parkville post plague. “Being part of campus life is how we can all play our part in creating a vibrant and supportive scholarly community, where both students and staff thrive,” she said in early ’22. It’s a message she will surely apply at Adelaide U, if only to create a welcome for all the international students it was originally intended to attract.
Her appointment adds to the popular wisdom that if you can manage Melbourne you can anything. She fellows recent UoM provosts who have moved on to universities of their own, John Dewar (LaTrobe) and Margaret Sheil (QUT).
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The National Health and Medical Research Council announces it is bringing management of grant admin system SAPPHIRE in-house. Apparently this will reduce administrative burden, optimise data capability and build an innovation culture. Just not yet. The existing system stays until June 2027. FC is sure this will be a much smoother process than the original launch. In October 2019 Labor Senator for NSW Deborah O’Neill asked in Estimates why the cost of the system grew from $5.8m to $16.2m before launch. The NHMRC’s Tony Krizan explained that “expectations have grown dramatically” and capability had been added.
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The Prime Minister has announced a “productivity roundtable,” which reminds some of his first-term Jobs and Skills Summit. Perhaps the most entertaining thing about that serious-indeed exercise was the desperation to be in the room where it happened. Many hoped but only two HE organisations went the whole-Hamilton, the National Tertiary Education Union and Universities Australia. UA was again quick this week to speak for HE, “our sector would strongly welcome a seat at the table in August to help drive productivity-enhancing reforms.” It was just hours ahead of the Group of Eight which made its standard announcement that its members “are the research powerhouses of Australia” and “have a key role to play in supporting the Albanese Government’s productivity agenda.”
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FC keeps coming across two categories AI in teaching strategies. One adapts Churchill’s definition of appeasement by keeping out of AI’s way in the hope it will eat one last. The other is regulation, on the assumption that what did not work for academic cheating providers before will now contain a way bigger technology. Mollie Dollinger and team at Curtin U have a better idea – fold AI into a continuing assessment design process, based on “assessment of learning” and “assessment for learning.” Their first take is HERE.
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Dawn Freshwater announces her resignation as VC of Uni Auckland, just 12 months or so into her second five -year term. She will leave in the first half of ’26 – there is no official reason provided, but much speculation why. She moved to Auckland in March 2020, leaving Uni Western Australia where she had been VC for two years or so.
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FC is probably the last to know, but there is a statutory review of the Data Availability and Transparency Act (2022), which is designed to regulate sharing of public sector records for research, “with appropriate safeguards,” including de-identification, secure access, and complex data integration. It was a bright idea from the Productivity Commission. So how’s it going? According to Universities Australia’s submission, nowhere. The process is so hard and slow, (requests can take two years) that only eight universities are accredited. “Even accredited institutions have been unable to realise the expected benefits that the Scheme was anticipated to bring,” UA laments. It proposes ways to move things along, but given the Act sunsets in April ’27, time is not on its side
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Last December the Queensland Government committed to supporting the College of Wine Tourism until new support was found, after Uni Southern Queensland bailed. Which has now happened with local government and industry groups taking over and the State Government promising two years of funding. “Corks pop on exciting new era” is the announcement headline. Tough on vintners who don’t make sparkling.
